The number of major retail investors in the local stock market in the second quarter was the highest in the past five quarters as surging share prices attracted more big investors, data compiled by the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE) showed on Monday.
A total of 2,427 “big players” participated in the main board in the April-to-June quarter, up from 1,736 in the previous quarter and the most since the 2,799 major investors in the first quarter of last year, the exchange’s data showed.
A “big player” is defined as an investor who trades at least NT$500 million (US$16.13 million) in shares on the TWSE in a single quarter.
Photo: I-Hwa Cheng, Bloomberg
Last quarter’s number increased by 39.8 percent from the previous quarter as more investors were drawn into local equities ranging from semiconductors to cloud computing and smart manufacturing when the TAIEX rallied on artificial intelligence hype from May to last month.
In the second quarter, the number of “mid-sized players” — or retail investors with quarterly turnover of between NT$100 million and NT$500 million — increased by 4,935 to 20,546, also the highest since the first quarter of last year, when it reached 21,926, TWSE data showed.
Meanwhile, the number of retail investors with quarterly trading of less than NT$100 million totaled 4.16 million last quarter, representing a sequential increase of 308,195 and the highest since the second quarter of last year, when it totaled 4.17 million, the data showed.
Such figures are seen as an important indicator of investor confidence in Taiwanese equities, as total market turnover on the main board jumped to NT$16 trillion in the second quarter, up 33.33 percent from NT$12 trillion in the first quarter, the exchange said.
Average daily turnover was NT$269.73 billion in the second quarter, increasing by 23.43 percent from an average of NT$218.53 billion three months earlier, TWSE data showed.
Retail investors accounted for 58.2 percent of the market’s turnover in the second quarter, up from 57.71 percent in the first quarter, while foreign institutional investors made up 30.93 percent, down from 31.53 percent. Local institutional investors represented the remaining 10.87 percent, up from 10.76 percent, the TWSE said.
The TAIEX yesterday closed down 106.38 points, or 0.61 percent, at 17,227.91. The index has risen 21.86 percent since the beginning of the year.
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